Pulling the Past from the Mud

Some restoration work begins with planting. This work began with thick gloves, preventative tetanus shots, and the understanding that nobody visiting the bay was leaving empty-handed.

Across the upper gravelly estuary and the lower mudflats, old metal was everywhere. Heavy cable ran through the substrate in rusted loops and broken lengths—jagged, sharp, and extraordinarily good at finding an unprotected hand or boot. Much of it had likely remained since the industrial operations that once occupied the bay. On the mudflats, every piece seemed anchored in a dark, very fragrant cultural layer of sediment, contaminated muck, glass, and other refuse. Pulling one length of cable often revealed another.

Tree Island Yogurt kindly donated a large box of heavy five-mil poly bags, perfectly suited to this deeply unglamorous task. Each could safely hold roughly twenty pounds of metal, muck, and glass without being immediately defeated by the sharp edges. Larger pieces went into black totes or were wrapped in poly sheeting. The loads left the bay aboard Wine Time or Gunnar’s Runner, then went either to metal recyclers in Campbell River or to an ocean-cleanup facility in the Comox Valley. The work depended on many hands: friends, neighbours, visitors, and anyone cheerfully “voluntold” that coming out meant filling at least one bag to take home. That rule spread the load and saved our backs.

It was dirty, stinky, occasionally menacing work—but every cable lifted from the mud made the shoreline safer. The goal is larger than one cleanup day. We hope that, as the industrial debris disappears and the estuary continues to recover, biodiversity will keep returning to the bay. Perhaps one day, future generations will be able to walk this shoreline barefoot without wondering what sharp piece of the past is buried beneath them.